Time

Overbooked

It’s a go-go world of busy, busy, busy

With days scheduled from start to finish, what time is left for random acts of conspicuous kindness, welcoming serendipity, or just saying yes to more adventure?

Thoughtful preparation is often required to coordinate whatever it may be. There’s value in staying organized, but over planning is a trap. The thirst for productivity in an industrial age has made busy feel/look successful. How often do we hear pride disguised by disgust, in the tone of someone explaining the constrictions of their overbooked calendar? Yes, it takes boundless hard work, a healthy obsession, and endless sequencing to be remarkable, but unexpected opportunities emerge when we’re not captive to a calendar.

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A lack of routine may slow down time.

Renting time can be lucrative, but in our connected era, there are ways to efficiently get things done without falling victim to a back-to-back life. Perhaps being comfortable without a plan can leave space to connect more interesting dots? Things will not always come together, but if the calendar is a tool to keep promises while staying quietly organized, complacency can be released and replaced by unplanned experiences that keep us open to next.

As we sip on another holiday season, see how it feels to fly without a plan. May voids filled with no agenda unravel a freedom to be your best.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Visualizing Variety

For people who play 80 hours instead of working 40, a diversified career portfolio often emerges.

A variety of activities and the contemporary energy of popcorning between them, helps vanguards stay ahead of the innovation curve. Diversification of work can also provide stability when the volume of different activities are strategically adjusted over time.

As we diversify career portfolios, balance, transparency, being realistic, patience, perpetual learning, and avoiding The Headline Trap is critical. These real skills fuel focused progress on multiple fronts and help reduce the risk of diluting yourself to mediocrity. If you’re stretched too thin, the value of diversification can devolve into fragmentation.

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It’s easy to discount our potential, but life is too short not to love what you do.

When change is constant, visualized assessment helps track how time is spent. Below is the evolution of my own career portfolio. People who see this often want to implement this method introduced in the Side Hustles chapter of YDNTB, so let’s jam on how to visualize your diversified career portfolio.

First, organize the things you spend time building. Assign a percentage of time spent on each activity, then plot the data into a pie chart. I use Apple Keynote to manage the pie chart and Adobe Photoshop for added flare, but any spreadsheet or slide deck software can visualize data in a similar way. Once created, save the pie chart as an image. You now have a conversation piece that showcases how you spend time. Update it as your career portfolio evolves or use this method as an annual exercise to stay balanced with your own personal bandwidth.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Popcorning

There’s an energy that comes from jumping between different initiates in a diversified career portfolio.

An ability to popcorn between progress is what makes a diversified career portfolio work. Over time, the mental and physical exhilaration strengthens an elastic-type of energy that builds focus, even when it’s applied on multiple fronts and in tiny time windows.

This ambitious movement fuels action within different slices of a diversified career portfolio and should be celebrated. For example, the impactful days where we hammer on one thing, ship progress; pop to the next thing, ship different progress; and then pop one or three more times to fuel momentum on even more! This type of work is exhausting, but the flow makes us feel tenacious. With practice, this multi-modal focus is refined, increasing the leverage to explore exponential activities.

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I have a fun new phygital item for sale.
Video – https://youtu.be/6toglC21dwI

They’ll say you gotta focus. Only chase one rabbit. Maybe. If financial stability relies on a single income or paid employees depend on you to lead, less diversification will help support stability.

That said, who knows a leader who only does one thing? Leaders are everywhere, doing everything! We are efficient humans with super computers all around us. Even when different ventures don’t seemingly relate, there is a shared thread that sews efficiency into the work. YOU!

For anyone with more to build, there’s no permission required to add creative slivers to the pie chart of how you spend time. Does it take an extra gear? Yes. Might it require practice to stay balanced? Yes. Will you have to play 80 hours in order to avoid working 40? Yes. It is absolutely possible for anyone in our connected era? Yes!

Cheers to this elastic-type of energy that comes from popcorning between various initiates within a balanced diversified career portfolio.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Linear

We use linear thinking in an exponential universe.

From a blade of grass on the football field, how can one imagine gaining a single yard? The first down marker feels distant at best, a touchdown seems impossible, and winning the game is barely comprehensible. A season championship? Yeah, that’s not even a glimmer in our mind’s eye. Trying to win all at once makes movement daunting, but staying consistent builds confidence and unlocks efficiencies. When space from this efficiency is used to stay innovative, what’s working is fortified as wormholes connect new levels of momentum.

We all know this.
Let’s dig deeper.

If a linear thinking is status quo, opportunity awaits those who augment their work through a cosmic perspective. As signals of product-market-fit emerge, understanding how each part effects the system will optimize what must work. This awareness leads to stability, which tempts most to coast along a linear path. People like us know that while it’s important to respect past success, such nostalgia does not guarantee the same results within a neon future characterized by constant change.

Yes, paving an exponential path takes endless energy, but we play for 80 hours to avoid working 40 and your creative eagerness can be nourished by a peculiar lack of routine. The goal is not more of the same. That will lead to similar, linear results. Instead, maintain what works, then keep increase the curve’s trajectory by feeding new ideas, talent, collisions, and action into the system.

You knew this was coming, but as always, an easy way to go beyond our linear capabilities is found in community. Community allows us all to do more with less. Curiosity, initiative, and adaptability activates diversified trust channels. Fresh feedback rewards a willingness to experiment and when integrity to follow up is applied, variables can be added to a more exponential equation.

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“Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. It is much more about understanding than purely hard work.” –Naval Ravikant

Like the opening analogy reminds us, converting a slope of work from linear to exponential is not done all at once. The Headline Trap is distracting and we often assume it takes luck, but we make our own luck with every action.

As we leverage our own community-driven exploration, we uncover ways to earn more with our mind, not our time. The farther we separate time and money, the less we rent our most precious resources. Each time we find that next gear, the system unfolds and the rising slope of your impact, personal bandwidth, sense of peace, and happiness is set free to rapidly ascend.

By Ben McDougal, ago